Wednesday, April 1, 2009

First, let's start petitions/referendums to change to each State's constitution in order to impose term limits on our Federal representatives in Congress.

I suggest term limits of no more than three terms in the House of Representatives (for a total of 6 years) and two terms in the Senate (ditto).

That gives any one seeking a federal-level political career a potential 18 years in office which is still currently less than most of these jokers have served.

Term limits reduce the hold lobbyists have on politicians while leaving their free speech rights untrammelled.

Term limits prevent politicians from getting into entirely-too-cozy relationships with government committees or corporations.

Term limits ensure fresh perspectives and require our politicians to be beholden to their constituents rather than their own personal political fortunes.

Term limits should check pork spending because the opportunities for back-scratching will be naturally limited, but it will not eliminate pork which in and of itself is not a bad thing in moderation.

And term limits in Congress check and balance the term limit currently imposed on the Presidency.

Additionally, I would suggest that State governments hold their own ethical reviews of their Federal representatives rather than expect Congress to effectively enforce ethical behavior.

Congressional Representatives and Senators represent their States in Congress, the States should have the right, privilege and duty to hold their representatives to decent ethical behavior.

Clearly Congress is not policing itself. It should have that privilege stripped from them and each State should amend its constitutions to keep the right to subject their Federal representatives to ethical review.

If a woman is seven weeks pregnant and someone shows her this picture, what is wrong with that? How is that “scary”?

Women are not delicate little flowers who can’t handle information, despite what NARAL Pro Choice and Planned Parenthood tell us. They should have the option of having all the information presented to them before an abortion so they understand what they are doing.

I don’t think they should be forced to look at an ultrasound, but one should be offered.

Abortion-rights activists sneer about anti-abortion advocates ignoring science. But the reality is that science is not on the side of NARAL or their ilk, and they know that. That’s why they don’t want women looking at ultrasounds or hearing that what they call a “little clump of cells” has a heartbeat at 3 weeks. (I learned that at the “Bodies” exhibit).

It was learning about that current science on fetal development that first shook my strong pro-choice beliefs. (I’m now where most Americans are: not advocating overturning Roe v. Wade, but in favor of limitations on abortion).

A few years ago, I was curious about crisis pregnancy centers (to be honest I had totally bought the negative propaganda about them) so I signed up for the counselor training at one in Manhattan.

I was ready to be outraged by their manipulation but in fact all they did was present information about the development of the fetus and advice on how to counsel women seeking abortion, with most of their focus on how to be loving to women seeking counseling after having an abortion.

Another key focus was on how to help women get health insurance if they wanted to keep the baby and finding parents to adopt the child if they wanted that option.

I don’t doubt that some of the crisis pregnancy centers are deceitful and engage in harmful practices. Such places should be shut down. But as a person who cares about women’s rights, I would be enormously pleased if the people who claim to be “pro-choice” would embrace a wider array of choices for women dealing with unwanted pregnancies, rather than trying to bully any organization offering abortion alternatives out of existence.

There are reports of the police having to charge the demonstraters in the City of London, but given the changed nature of the police force in the U.K., as described in several posts below, I wouldn't be quick to ascribe blame even to this lot. However, this is a very interesting report from the BBC live blog:

16:53 The BBC's Mark Georgiou says: Until now the climate camp protest has had a peaceful, almost carnival atmosphere. However, in last half an hour a different sort of demonstrator has started to arrive - clad in black, masked and aggressive.

The paramilitary wing of climate protesters? British left/environmental protests — anti-nuclear in the 1980s, anti-roads protests in the 1990s, have often attracted this sort. I'd imagine that climate is latest cause on which they're hanging their hats.

The reference to gaseous emissions exploding the Wisconsin Capital is pretty good.

But of course, the Swiss Speghettie Harvist...

Who knew the olden folks had a sense of humor! (My Classicist husband is going to beat me with ancient Greek plays for that comment.) I remember when a speghettie company did a TV ad for homegrown pasta. I thought they were clever at the time, now I know better.

Here in America we still have it good. Decent citizens can take action to help themselves and others (although if Obama has his way things will start looking like this.

An appalling story from the U.K. is making its way around the blogosphere this morning. In a nutshell: a housefire in South Yorkshire (h/t: samizdata) claimed the lives of a young (and expecting) couple, and their three year old son. Their 5 year old daughter is in critical condition at a local hospital and may not survive.

While awaiting the arrival of the fire department, the South Yorkshire police actively thwarted every effort by concerned neighbors to rescue the family trapped inside their burning home. A police spokeswoman indicated that the officers “handled this incident as professionally as possible.”

You be the judge.

Davey Davis, 38, a friend of the family, said: “It was the most harrowing thing I have ever witnessed. Michelle was at the bedroom window yelling, ‘Please save my kids’ and we wanted to help but the police were pushing us back and not allowing us near. We were willing to risk our lives to save those kiddies but the police wouldn’t let us.

I am utterly at a loss for words—not for want of emotion, the feeling I have is very real. It’s just that there are no words low enough or vile enough to accurately describe the actions of these first responders. None.

The presumption that the State owns you, and can therefore decide for you, whether you can aid your friends and neighbors even as they are dying, is absolutely inexcusable. May they be tormented by unabsolvable guilt, for the rest of their days.

This is just horrible and yet, I fear England's nanny state behavior is a glimpse of America's future.

God Forbid. And please Dear Lord, bless those who wished to help and take those who perished into your arms.

According to this article in The Bulletin, The New York Times killed a story about Obama using ACORN to raise campaign funds during the election because "it was a game changer.", ie Obama was doing something wrong and if the American people learned this, they wouldn't vote for Obama.

A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a “a game changer.”

Heather Heidelbaugh, who represented the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee in the lawsuit against the group, recounted for the ommittee what she had been told by a former ACORN worker who had worked in the group’s Washington, D.C. office. The former worker, Anita Moncrief, told Ms. Heidelbaugh last October, during the state committee’s litigation against ACORN, she had been a “confidential informant for several months to The New York Times reporter, Stephanie Strom.”

Ms. Moncrief had been providing Ms. Strom with information about ACORN’s election activities. Ms. Strom had written several stories based on information Ms. Moncrief had given her.

During her testimony, Ms. Heidelbaugh said Ms. Moncrief had told her The New York Times articles stopped when she revealed that the Obama presidential campaign had sent its maxed-out donor list to ACORN’s Washington, D.C. office.

Ms. Moncrief told Ms. Heidelbaugh the campaign had asked her and her boss to “reach out to the maxed-out donors and solicit donations from them for Get Out the Vote efforts to be run by ACORN.”

Ms. Heidelbaugh then told the congressional panel:

“Upon learning this information and receiving the list of donors from the Obama campaign, Ms. Strom reported to Ms. Moncrief that her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, “it was a game changer.”’

Ms. Moncrief made her first overture to Ms. Heidelbaugh after The New York Times allegedly spiked the story — on Oct. 21, 2008. Last fall, she testified under oath about what she had learned about ACORN from her years in its Washington, D.C. office. Although she was present at the congressional hearing, she did not testify.

U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., the ranking Republican on the committee, said the interactions between the Obama campaign and ACORN, as described by Ms. Moncrief, and attested to before the committee by Ms. Heidelbaugh, could possibly violate federal election law, and “ACORN has a pattern of getting in trouble for violating federal election laws.”

He also voiced criticism of The New York Times.

“If true, The New York Times is showing once again that it is a not an impartial observer of the political scene,” he said. “If they want to be a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, they should put Barack Obama approves of this in their newspaper.”

I wouldn't let Barney Frank put one toe on my property but now, according to this Washington Times article, he's looking to control all our salaries.

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the "Pay for Performance Act of 2009," would impose government controls on the pay of all employees -- not just top executives -- of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

When are the good people of Newton, MA going to wake up and vote this felonious, unethical, lying sack of human waste, hack out of office?

In this post, he argues that Obama is a rookie who will cause America to lose some very important policy objectives due to his complete and utter lack of experience with any thing of any importance.

Harsh but true.

Barack Obama is a rookie in a sense that few other presidents in American history have ever been. It is not just that he has never been president before. He has never had any position in any kind of organization where he was personally responsible for the outcome.

And...

There is no sign that President Obama has impressed the Russians, the Iranians, or the North Koreans, except by his rookie mistakes — and that is a dangerous way to impress dangerous people.

What did his televised overture to the Iranians accomplish, except to reassure them that he was not going to do a damn thing to stop them from getting a nuclear bomb? It is a mistake that can go ringing down the corridors of history.

In the name of “change,” Barack Obama is following policies so old that this generation has never heard of them — certainly not in most of our educational institutions, where history has been replaced by “social studies” or other politically correct courses.

Seeking deals with our adversaries, behind the backs of our allies? The French did that at Munich back in 1938. They threw Czechoslovakia to the wolves and, less than two years later, Hitler gobbled up France anyway.

This year, President Obama’s attempt to make a backdoor deal with the Russians, behind the backs of the NATO countries, was not only rejected but made public by the Russians — a sign of contempt and a warning to our allies not to put too much trust in the United States. ...

However much Barack Obama has proclaimed his support for Israel, his first phone call as president of the United States was to Hamas, to which he has given hundreds of millions of dollars, which can buy a lot of rockets to fire into Israel.

Our oldest and staunchest ally, Britain, has been downgraded by President Obama’s visibly unimpressive reception of British prime minister Gordon Brown, compared to the way that previous presidents over the past two generations have received British prime ministers. President Obama’s sending the bust of Winston Churchill from the White House back to the British embassy at about the same time was either a rookie mistake or another snub.

There's a lot of ruin in a nation, which is why it is taking Henry Waxman (D., Us Magazine) and Edward Markey 648 pages to finish America off. That's the length of their draft of a Global Warming and Energy Bill, just circulated today (we should have the text up at GlobalWarming.org soon). The bill contains everything you'd expect from an Al Gore wish list and will assuredly raise energy prices to crippling levels, as well as finish off the auto industry as we know it. Watch this space or Planet Gore for more as colleagues and I go through it.

Below is from Greg Pollowitz's NRO post from March 26th detailing the mistake.

And now the really funny part. This is from today's New York Times "Bits" blog on Twitter's future business model:

The team does not yet know what the paid service will include, but Mr. Stone said it will likely offer things like analysis of the traffic to businesses’ Twitter profiles and verified accounts so customers know they are talking to the actual business. (That would help businesses avoid the Keith Olbermann mishap earlier this week. Mr. Olbermann named Twitter “the worst person in the world” for allowing a fake account under his name, but it turned out that MSNBC was running the account, unbeknownst to Mr. Olbermann,says Mr. Stone.)

Anyone know of an apology to Fox News yet? I did a quick search of the show's transcripts from Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and didn't see one.

Also of note, I actually was following Keith Olbermann on Twitter for a day or so, until I realized he wasn't using it. Whoever is in charge of the feed now has blocked it from public view. But, from what I remember, the posts were in the first person. Maybe NBC should admit that it was ghost-posting for one of its anchors?

From The Guardian, this article describes Obama's impending visit to the UK ass a small invasion force.

More than 500 officials and staff will accompany the president on his tour this week - along with a mass of high-tech security equipment, including the $300,000 presidential limousine, known as The Beast. Fitted with night-vision camera, reinforced steel plating, tear- gas cannon and oxygen tanks, the vehicle is the ultimate in heavy armoured transport.

In addition, a team from the White House kitchen will travel with the president to prepare his food. As one official put it: "When the president travels, the White House travels with him, right down to the car he drives, the water he drinks, the gasoline he uses, the food he eats. America is still the sole superpower and the president must have the ability to handle any crisis, anywhere, any time."

Personally, I think this is a bit tacky and over-the-top and I wonder if previous Presidents have travelled with such ostentation before.

What has impressed me about Stamford, CT's Tax Revolt Tea Party was that the folks interviewed for the Stamford Advocate came from all over Connecticut.

I grew up in the town right next door to Stamford and went to the University of Connecticut, so believe me when I tell you that East Granby, Milford, Weston. You have to drive some distance (for Connecticut) to get from there to Stamford.

Fascism is socialism with government owning business (basically). According to The Virginian blog, Obama's administration may be taking steps towards that end when it announced...

Beyond the banks, the Obama government is demanding the power to seize all non-bank companies that could, in its sole opinion, damage the economy. Keep in mind that the government already has the power to seize banks via the FDIC. By defining the seizure power to "non-banks" the government is literally asking for power to seize ANY company. Tim Geithner’s rationale is that this power could have prevented the AIG problem. But it is not at all clear how the government could have prevented AIG from imploding when it failed to do so with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two quasi governmental organizations over which the government had oversight. And the power that the government is demanding in it's power to seize "non-banks" is not limited to AIG-like corporations. Based on Geithner’s testimony, the power the government is demanding will give it the power to seize General Electric, General Motors, Boeing, Exxon and any other major corporation.

I'm not certain we're are there yet, this could simply be a trial balloon. But...

Which leads to a question: Why not? I mean, come on, the guy's one of the figures of the age. Aren't you even curious? I listen to all your guys: NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, The Times, the New York Times, the New Yorker -- I check out the whole left-wing hallelujah chorus. Why are you afraid to spend a couple of hours listening to Limbaugh's show and seriously considering if and why you disagree with him?

Let me guess at your answer. You don't need to listen to him. You've heard enough to know he's a) racist, b) hateful, c) stupid, d) merely an outrageous entertainer not to be taken seriously or e) all of the above.

Now let me tell you the real answer: You're a lowdown, yellow-bellied, lily-livered intellectual coward. You're terrified of finding out he makes more sense than you do.

AIG is evil and all bonuses their employees have contractually received will be ripped from their bank accounts post-haste.

And yet, and yet, despite Obama clearly believing this and allowing Congress to act on such class-baiting, he has appointed an AIG board of director's member to serve on Obama's Tax Reform Task Force.

Now, I don't share the same belief as Obama regarding AIG and bonuses but you'd have thought that The One would have ears made of something other than tin.

Seriously, how can you bang on the drum of "AIG is bad" to the point that these poor employees are getting death threats and then appoint one of AIG's board members to one of your government task forces.